There are numerous display racks, folding boxes and display cartons in the prior art. These devices are usually made of a unitary paperboard blank and are cut, scored and folded so as to form a container for displaying objects. Many of the displays have a collapsible easel support for maintaining the carton in its erected position holding articles to be displayed.
Some carton have two leg panels hingedly attached to the back panel of the carton and are foldable into an angular position for supporting the carton. Such easels are usually manufactured separately and glued to the back of the display carton because they need to be made of a heavier material than the material of which the carton is made. In other types of easels, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,149,630, the easel is formed as a portion of the back panel and has to be moved out of the back panel in order to assemble the easel when the carton is erected. This construction weakens the structure because the easel is cut out of the back wall of the display itself. Other easel supports are formed as triangular pyramids, triangles, and other systems that are complicated to set up and are not sturdy because of the manner of construction.
The present invention overcomes these disadvantages of the prior art by providing a unitary paper blank that is cut, scored, folded, and glued to form a collapsible display carton having a box portion and a collapsible easel support as an integral part thereof. The easel is an elongated one piece hollow support, rectangular in cross-section and is an integral extension of the box portion and is attached to and extends upwardly along the back wall from the bottom wall to support the carton in its assembled state for holding articles. The support has a stay flap integrally formed with and extending from a top edge of one side of the elongated support for foldably engaging an opposite side of the hollow support and holding the support in its rectangular cross-section so as to support the hollow box portion or carton portion in an upright position to display articles contained therein.
The unitary paper blank comprises a back portion section, a first side wall portion, a front wall portion, a second side wall portion, and the easel support section as integral extension of each other. In addition, the unitary blank has an additional integrally formed partial panel for mating with and supporting the back wall panel to give it strength. The bottom edges of the two side walls and the bottom edges of the support are angled from the front to the back in a sloping manner so as to allow the entire container to sit at an angle in its assembled state for a more clearer viewing of the articles contained therein.
Thus it is an object of the present invention to provide a foldable paperboard display carton having an easel support that is integrally formed as a separate extension the unitary blank so as to strengthen and not weaken the back wall of the carton.
It is also an object to the present invention to provide a carton with a collapsible easel support that has bottom edges that slope from the front to the back to support an assembled carton so that it stands at an angle to the surface.
It is still another object to the present invention to provide an elongated one piece hollow support rectangular in cross-section and integrally formed with the box portion and attached to and extending upwardly along the back wall from the bottom wall.
It is also an object of the present invention to provide a foldable paperboard display carton that is an automatic type setup extremely simple to assemble and having positive locking action.